Last Night

Last night was hard.

Don't know why.
Nothing happened to trigger anything.

I was just laying in bed, not really able to sleep, Adam was already asleep next to me. And I just got to thinking...and had a breakdown. Time to think isn't good for me these days. Luckily, there isn't much of it.

Brain Dump

Hi...just a random post to get some thoughts out.

I've been learning a lot lately about being content. Content with what I have, content (and confident!) in knowing what I like, content with how our life is going. I have so many things/people that I'm so grateful for...I need to step back every once in a while and realize just how good I have it. I have an amazing husband, parents who are very supportive, a house that I love, two healthy wonderful dogs, a thriving business, and awesome friends. Kinda along these same lines, but kinda not...I was talking to a friend lately about all this. She's a mom and has recently decided that she's not going to worry about what other people think about how she raises her kid. People can give her advice right and left, but only she knows what's good for her baby. Stretching that to relate to my life, I can compare what I have to what other people have, but in the end, my house is big enough, I have plenty of clothes, and my hubby is super hot. :) 

Did that make any sense?

In spite of all of that, I definitely am still struggling with this whole miscarriage thing. I feel like (and I know this is ridiculous) if I talk about it enough, someone somewhere will give me a solution. They will spell out for me exactly how to deal with it...all the emotions, all the heartache. There's got to be an answer. Right? Wrong. There's no answer, there's no way to make it easier. 

I also realized that throughout this whole thing, I've been banking on getting pregnant right away when we start trying again. What if that doesn't happen? That will turn me into a heaping mess. Hmm. I guess we'll just cross that bridge when it comes and pray hard about it in the mean time.

We had a really great wedding tonight, which I will be posting photos from sometime this week on my photo blog. But I'm so excited for next weekend because it's my first weekend off since May! The last weekend I had off was the weekend we lost the baby. That's crazy to think about. Anyway, I have no plans and I'm so excited about that. Woohoo!

I'm re-reading Harry Potter and am on the second book. It makes me want to be a wizard. Real bad. Is that childish? :)

Today's Appointment

Kind of an anti-climactic appointment today. Which is good! Dr. Tjaden basically just wanted to know if I had any questions and I only had a few. I will be starting another round of Provera in a couple days to induce my next cycle. After that cycle, I'll have a sonogram and x-ray to make sure the surgery was thorough enough in removing the septum. If everything looks good, we'll wait for my next cycle to start, and then we're good to go. Which I pretty much knew vaguely, but now we have a little more of a time frame for things.

Thanks to everyone who was praying for us today. I'm feeling very optimistic lately, and God can be the only reason for that. :)

Girls' Night

Saturday after I was finished with my wedding, Lindsey and I went over to Katie's new apartment for a little house warming. Katie was our studio manager until early June. She graduated with a graphic design degree and now works as a graphic designer at Autobook. Anyway, she finally moved out on her own and has the cutest apartment!

We had tacos and chips and dip and cookie bars, watched Drop Dead Gorgeous and Practical Magic, and took dumb photos. Here they are! :)

Katie started an eye-closing trend...

We had a casualty...not really sure what happened to Lindsey.

We made cookie bars in my amazing brownie edge pan. YUM.

Here's a little of Katie's cute apartment. She got that yellow chair at a garage sale for $5!

And a cute lamp.

Catch Up

I uploaded the photos from my camera on to my computer today, and it looks like I have a little catch up to do! We'll start with the 4th of July. Adam and I played it low-key. I had a wedding that day and got home just before dark, so we went over to one of Adam's friends houses (who wasn't home) and used his private beach to relax and watch the festivities. Here was our view.

Adam was in one of his refusing to take a nice picture moods, so this was the best we got. Don't know what the hand's about.

Since Adam's still on summer break, I sometimes get up and leave for work before he's out of bed. One morning I got out of the shower and came into the bedroom to get dressed, and found this hilarity going on. Two of my loves.

Scott is one of our best friends, but we unfortunately go months without seeing him sometimes. We had him over recently for dinner. He looks like the unibomber right now because he stubbornly refuses to shave until Thanksgiving. Ignore that. My favorite part of this picture is the little guy sneaking around the table in the bottom left. :)

Last Sunday, we drove the motorcycle to Newton to have lunch at my parents' house. My dad is the best cook, and we had this awesome spread for lunch. We ate out on their deck and my mom had fresh flowers, placemats, and cold drinks waiting for us. So fun.

I didn't want my picture taken. I had helmet hair. But I put this picture up anyway because it kinda shows their backyard. They have the prettiest backyard. And if you saw before and after photos, it would really surprise you. They've lived in that house since I was 5 and have slowly transformed it to be worthy of a magazine spread! I should go over there and take some nice photos of it some day and submit them to a magazine.

Strawberry shortcake for dessert. Yum.

Notice the Harry Potter book? Go Mom. :)

Happy Things

Sunday afternoons.

A clean (or nearly clean) house.

The thought of an appointment-free Monday.

Tuesday's doctor appointment.

A Doberman in my bed on my lap.

A little dog not far away.

Only having eaten half of my calories for today.

Getting to rearrange the bedroom later.

Last night's girls night with Lindsey and Katie.

A fun motorcycle ride to church this morning.

My mom is finally reading Harry Potter. :)

Small Group

Every Friday night, we get together with our small group people. Tonight we had an especially good talk about 1 John, and I'm so thankful for our friends who we can be real with. We talked a lot about how God uses bad circumstances to orchestrate our lives for the greater good. I know that it usually seems that in the end, God used our bad experiences to better our lives, and I'm sure this whole thing will end up that way. It's just difficult when you can't see the big picture yet. I'm not to that point where I can look back on things and see why they happened the way they did.

One of the guys talked about the loss of his dad last summer and how, while it was horrible to go through, there were many things working together the weekend it happened that enabled all the family to be together during that rough time. He also talked about how people would tell him that it would take time to get past it. And while time does make things a little easier, you'll never get "past" it.

It was really good to know that someone else is going through the same things I am. He even made mention that in the healing process you have to "learn to exist again" without the person you lost. I've had that exact feeling so many times. Feeling this way is new to me. I know God says He'll never give us more than we can bear, but at times, losing our baby has felt like more than I can handle. How does one exist after such a tragic loss? Learning to live with this constant weight on my shoulders is hard.

I guess more than anything, I just felt relief (I guess that's the right word?) that someone who'd gone through a completely different situation was having so many of the same feelings that I am. Maybe it was just a reassurance that I'm not crazy!! :) His loss was a year ago, and it's still hard, but he's learned to exist with life being this way, instead of how it was. Our worlds will never be the same.

Here are a couple photos of our awesome small group friends! The wives:

Left to right: Risa, Audra, Melinda, me, Tiffany, Val.

The hubbys:

Top L to R: Adam, Luis (apparently they didn't get the memo this was supposed to be a nice picture)

Bottom L to R: Aaron, Justin, Ryan M., Ryan H.

10 points to the first person that can correctly match all the wives to their husbands! :)